


Strong Hand And Outstretched Arm

by Pargoletta



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Returns, Gen, Jewish Bucky Barnes, Jewish Character, Jewish Holidays, Jewish Steve Rogers, Pesach | Passover, Post-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Rituals, Scents & Smells
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-23
Updated: 2015-11-30
Packaged: 2018-05-02 23:17:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5267603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pargoletta/pseuds/Pargoletta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At Passover, Steve hosts a seder and invites his friends to celebrate a season of freedom and new beginnings.  But he isn’t the only one in need of a new beginning on that night, as one more person wonders if there’s a place at Steve’s table for him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Preparations

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, and welcome to this story! It’s tremendously out of season, but, hey, _The Prince of Egypt_ was released near Christmas, so this story is in good company.
> 
> There’s quite a bit of inspiration from my friend [Valmora](http://archiveofourown.org/users/valmora) here, as well as from holidays that I recall as a kid. We never had a seder end the way this one does, although we did come pretty close once. But that, as they say, is another story for another time. Speaking of stories, the Passover seder is conducted according to a service book called a haggadah, and there are several interesting and/or amusing translations available online, if you want to take a look.
> 
> Enjoy this one, and I’ll meet you at the end.

**1\. Preparations**

  

 

A man who was once a ghost walked along one of the main streets, passing banks, cafes, a flower shop, and a hardware store. He couldn’t remember the name of the town, though he knew that it was the one he wanted to be in. This didn’t bother him as much as he thought it should. There were lots of things that he couldn’t remember, and he had a tendency to forget things shortly after learning them. He had taken to carrying small scraps of paper and cheap spiral-bound notepads in the pockets of his battered jacket and blue jeans, and if there was anything that was really important, he would write it down. Things that were written down lasted longer than things that were kept in his mind. At the moment, the name of the town was no longer important. What was important was to find a specific address. Something in the back of his mind had coughed up the idea that the public library would tell him things, so his mission now was to find the public library. 

It took the man several tries, wandering up and down side streets named after trees and plants, but eventually he found a small building opposite an elementary school. It was early afternoon, and school had not yet let out for the day. The library was relatively quiet, with a few elderly retirees examining the new releases and a group of young men poring over employment guides. The man looked around, noted the position of every person in the first room, and then walked to a desk that said “Information.” 

The desk was staffed by a middle-aged woman with a green cardigan and a cheerful smile. “Can I help you?” she asked. 

“I want to use a computer,” the man said, and then remembered to add, “Please.” 

“Sure thing. We’ve got seven of them, and they’re over on that table.” The woman in the green cardigan pointed. “They’re completely set up. Why don’t you take . . . let’s see . . . Number Five is free at the moment. Can I take your name, just for the sign-in sheet?” 

The man hesitated. “James,” he said, hoping that it would be enough. He had had other names and other designations in the past, but he didn’t know if they applied any more. “James” was safe and nondescript, and he was fairly sure that he had a right to use that name anyway. 

“Okay. James.” The woman in the green cardigan made a note on a clipboard. “Do you need any help getting online?” 

“No, ma’am. Thank you, ma’am.” He made a smile at her. 

“All right. You just wave if you need any help.” The woman in the green cardigan smiled back. 

The man sat down at the monitor and opened a browser window. He glanced to the left and saw that the seat was empty. The computer at his right was occupied by an elderly man looking at pictures of dogs. The man pulled his ball cap a little further down over his face and began to type words into the search bar, his fingers a little bit clumsy from the thin gloves that he wore. 

Half an hour later, he had the address that he needed, and he wrote it down carefully on a piece of paper, along with directions to get there. It was several miles away, and it would take him over an hour to walk it, but he didn’t mind. He liked walking. You could go anywhere, really, without rails or roads to restrict you. He could choose where he wanted to go and how he wanted to get there, and he could see interesting things along the way. It was spring, and the activity of walking would keep him warm enough with only his jacket, even after dark.

After he had obtained the information that he needed, the man logged off of the computer and went to the room where the biographies were kept. A sign informed him that they were shelved in alphabetical order by the subject’s name. He hesitated for a moment, unsure which name to try. _A_ yielded nothing, and neither did _C_. Finally, he found the books he was looking for under _R_. He selected three books, two with thick sections of photographs printed on glossy paper, and carried them over to a small reading desk. The desk was tucked away in a corner behind the stacks, and it had a little lamp clipped onto it. It promised privacy and security. He settled down with his books, ready to read in peace for a few hours. 

Several hours later, the friendly voice of the woman in the green cardigan came over the public address system, informing patrons that the library was closing. The man put down his books somewhat reluctantly. They had told him many fascinating and disturbing stories. Some of the stories seemed to be more true than others, though he wasn’t sure why he felt that way. But he had appreciated all of the photographs. There was one in particular, that had appeared in all three of the books, that he had lingered on longer than the rest. It was a plain portrait, snapped cheaply in a photo booth. It showed two boys, one small, thin and blond, and the other taller, broader, and dark, crowded into the frame. The dark boy grinned happily at the camera, but the blond boy had been captured in the act of laughing uproariously, possibly at a joke that the dark boy had just told. 

The man had stared at this photograph for a long time, imagining the warmth of a thin body pressed up against him in a curtain-enclosed booth, shaking with laughter. He ran his finger once more over the caption. _Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes, photo taken 1942, immediately preceding Barnes’s induction into the Army. Found among Steve Rogers’s belongings after his death._ The photo was credited to the Smithsonian Institution Archives, though it had not been featured in the exhibit that the man had haunted every day for several weeks the previous spring. He had considered tearing the page out of one of the books. But he decided against it, since in one, the picture was too small, and in another, it was blurry and printed on poor quality paper, while in the third, the image was so close to the spine that he feared that he would damage the picture trying to extract the page. So he left the books intact on the reading desk and left the library. 

“Find everything you needed?” the woman in the green cardigan asked. 

“Yes, ma’am,” the man said. “Thank you.”

“Good night! Come back soon.” 

He walked back onto the street. School had let out, and the schoolyard across the street was empty and quiet. The shadows were lengthening, though he still had well over an hour of daylight left. He checked the directions he had written down, and started on his walk. Unbidden, fragments of a song danced through his mind. He sang a little bit, under his breath, as he walked. 

_They say that in the Army, the coffee’s mighty fine . . .  
_

_One rolled off a table . . .  
_

_They pay you thirty dollars . . .  
_

_Gee, Ma, I wanna go_

That was the other thing that walking was good for. When he walked, all sorts of fragments came into his mind. Mostly, he enjoyed the kaleidescope, although some of the fragments were strange or downright terrifying. But, he decided, he didn’t have to worry about that much longer. 

A year before, in the springtime, he had fought with a man whose face was maddeningly familiar but whose name danced just outside the edge of his memory. That man had given him the name “James,” and in return, he had pulled the man from the bottom of a river on the day that his life as he knew it had exploded. With nowhere in particular to go, he had drifted. One day, he had found himself at a museum, comfortably anonymous in a crowd, and the face of the man on the bridge stared out at him from the walls. One of two names always accompanied the image, although the man couldn’t always remember which order they went in. _Steve America_ might have been one of them, possibly. 

There had been another face as well. It didn’t give him the same thrill of recognition as the face of Steve America, but there was something familiar about it. He had occasionally caught himself mimicking the expressions on the second face as he gazed at the pictures. Each time, he had given himself a little shake and a silent scolding, because it was dangerous to give so much away. But he couldn’t seem to stop mimicking those pictures. The captions said that they were photographs of a man named “James,” which was the name that Steve America had given him. “James” was probably an honorable name, and he had decided to keep it. 

Over the past year, it had become clear to him that he was never going to solve the mystery of his existence on his own. His memory had too many holes in it for him to learn everything he needed to know on his own. But Steve America certainly seemed to know something about him. He had been hanging around this area of the country for several weeks now, and tonight felt right to him. Tonight, he would screw up his courage and go to Steve America and find out more about the man called “James.” 

_I don’t want no more of Army life_

_Gee, Ma, I wanna go_

_Back where the toilets flow . . ._

The man sang quietly to himself as he walked along the side of a country road.

 

 

Steve Rogers hummed a little as he set the table. Some months after the Chitauri, he had thought to investigate what had become of the things he had remembered from his home. Between the Smithsonian and the Steve Rogers Museum in Brooklyn, he learned that most of what had been left in his apartment when he enlisted had been sold or lost, but he had managed to retrieve a few items. He had sold his mother’s company dishes long ago, and the pretty patterned glass dishes that he and his mother had painstakingly collected from picture houses and oatmeal boxes had vanished. But the blue and white porcelain seder plate had its own drawer in the storage rooms at the Smithsonian, and the Steve Rogers Museum held an engraved silver goblet. Both museums had returned the items after Steve had explained how much it would mean to him to have the only lovely things that his mother had carried across the ocean over a century ago. 

He had washed the plate by hand and filled it with the ceremonial foods, and then polished the silver cup with a soft cloth. He set both of them on the table and decided that he liked the contrast that they made with the modern china dishes and the elegant stainless steel cutlery he had purchased for himself. He had set six places at the table, and now he dragged one more chair to the table and set a pillow on it. Something hissed in the kitchen, and he hurried back to check on the soup and the brisket. 

Just as he determined that nothing was in danger of boiling over, the doorbell rang. He opened the door to find Wanda standing there, smiling shyly at him as she clutched a covered bowl. Steve squelched a moment of panic as he remembered where he had hidden her gift, and returned her smile. 

“Wanda, come on in. I’m so glad you could come.” 

“Thank you,” Wanda said softly. “Thank you for inviting me. I don’t know what I would have done otherwise.” 

“Me, neither,” Steve confessed. “Probably driven into the city and gone to the communal one again.” 

Wanda dropped her gaze to the bowl she held. “I didn’t know what to bring,” she said. “Flowers seemed too ordinary, and, of course, no pastries.” She offered him the bowl. “I made charoset. Like my mother did.” 

Steve took the bowl and peeled back the foil covering. The sweet scent of fruit, spices, and wine tickled his nose, and he laughed. “I’m glad you did. I tried to make it, but I spilled the wine, and now it’s all soupy. This will be much better. Come on, let’s put some on the seder plate.” 

Wanda gave him a real smile at that, and followed Steve into the house. The doorbell rang again, and he put her in charge of bringing wine and matzo from the kitchen to the table while he answered the door. This time, Tony and Pepper stood on the doorstep. 

“Steve, it is so good to see you,” Pepper said, leaning over the large plastic container of stewed carrots, prunes, and sweet potatoes she was carrying to kiss him on the cheek. “You look happy. Are you happy?” 

“I think so. I’m glad to see you guys.” 

Tony smirked as he handed Steve a plastic tray labeled “Boston Fruit Slices,” which contained brightly colored half-circles that glistened with sugar. “Never been quite sure what these were made of, but damn if they aren’t the most addictive little snacks. Seasonal specialty, one of the few.” 

“Thanks, Tony,” Steve said. “You think these will go with the sponge cake I made?” 

Tony smirked at him. “Nope. Won’t be any left by the time we get to the cake. Never go into a seder without snacking first, that’s my motto. And, lest you think that I come bearing nothing but sugar and froth, come out to the car with me.”

Steve glanced at Pepper, who nodded. “I’ll just put this in the kitchen. You go on.” 

Steve followed Tony out to the small front yard, to find it dominated by a large SUV. Tony pulled the rear doors open and nodded to indicate that Steve should unlatch the trunk. Inside, Steve saw a pair of robots. Tony pulled a ramp from the back seat and set it up against the trunk, and then whistled. The robots came to life, whirring and glowing, and trundled down the ramp. 

“Behold,” Tony said. “Your very own household staff for the evening.” 

Steve stared at the robots, which were waist-high and halfway between adorable and ugly. “What do you mean?” 

“The worst thing about a dinner party,” Tony said, “is sitting around afterwards having to stare at the pile of dirty dishes afterwards. The bots here can wash dishes, so you can sit around in an unleavened food coma with the rest of us, and we can all feel like decadent lords of the realm.” 

“That’s . . . wow.” Steve blinked at the robots, and reached out to pat the closest one on its dome. 

Tony smiled. “I’ve tinkered with these a bit,” he said. “I figure we can start beta testing them today, and if they work, we’ve found another vein of money for Stark Industries.” 

One of the robots reached out and poked Steve in the hip just as a sleek sports car pulled into the driveway. Steve tried to swat at the robot and wave to the new arrivals at the same time. Both Natasha and Sam were laughing as they got out of the car. “Down, boy,” Natasha said to the robot. Sam popped the trunk of the sports car and lifted out a cardboard box, which Natasha took from him, and then a padded carrying case for himself. 

“Tony brought dishwashing robots,” Steve told them, by way of greeting. 

“That’s . . . weird,” Sam chuckled. 

Natasha nudged a robot out of her way with her knee. “That’s Tony,” she said. 

“Excuse you,” Tony replied. “That’s Steve. Over the course of our exciting and often murderbot-filled acquaintance, I realized that there is nothing this guy likes more than cleanup. Pepper and I did not drive all the way out here to sit around while Cap washes dishes all night.” 

Sam shrugged. “I hear that. Dishbots it is.” He hefted his carrying case in Steve’s general direction. “Brought the asparagus you wanted, and a salad, too. Radishes and mint, and there’s dressing in a jar.” 

“I got the gefilte fish and some condiments,” Natasha said, pointedly ignoring Tony’s theatrical gagging behind her. “Also, more wine.” 

Steve peered into the box. “You really think we’ll need that much?”

“Four glasses for each of us, plus what we drink with dinner?” Natasha asked. “Plus people who want different flavors, or who, in fact, would rather drink real wine than that Manischewitz cough syrup?” 

“Well, that sounds exciting,” Steve said with a laugh. 

“Is Wanda here yet?” 

“In the kitchen.” 

Natasha smiled. “Good. I’ll take this stuff in and go catch her up on her jobs for tonight.” She strode towards the door before Steve could offer to carry the box in for her. Instead, he turned to Sam. 

“Carry some of that?” 

“Sure.” Sam handed Steve the carrying case and used the opportunity to straighten his tie and pull a cheap kippah out of his pocket. It was made of blue suit lining, and had “Nathan Jaffe’s Bar Mitzvah 10/6/12” printed on it. “CO’s kid,” he explained. He placed it on his head and spread his hands. “What do you think?” 

Tony pinched Sam’s cheek. “Such a handsome boy.” 

Sam laughed and swatted in Tony’s general direction. Steve hefted the carrying case over his shoulder by the strap, pulled the ramp from the SUV and went to set it up at the door. “Come on inside,” he said. Tony and Sam chivvied the dishbots up the ramp and followed him into the house. 

Inside was a noisy bustle of activity and conversation. Pepper and Sam carried dishes of parsley, salt water, horseradish, and Wanda’s charoset to the table, while Tony cracked open the wine and set out haggadot. “Maxwell House?” he said. “Old-school. So you.” 

Steve glanced up from adjusting the flame under the soup. “Pass me some of that candy, and I’ll forgive you.” 

Tony stuck a yellow half-circle between Steve’s teeth. Steve peeked out at the table and spotted Natasha and Wanda in the corner, whispering in Russian. Natasha pointed at the chair with the pillow and looked conspiratorial. Wanda giggled. Steve looked away politely to hide his own smile, and busied himself basting the brisket with a spoonful of wine sauce. 

“Steve, I think we’re about ready out here,” Pepper called. 

Sam came to stand in the doorway. “Need anything else?”

Steve made sure that the heat in the kitchen was turned low, and washed his hands. He followed Sam out to the table and did a quick inventory of the place settings, candles, wine, bowls, and guests. He smiled. “I think we’re ready. Sam, can you pour the wine? Everyone gets a glass, and the silver cup gets filled all the way up.” 

The guests took their seats and stood behind them. Sam filled the cup for the prophet Elijah and then took requests for various kinds of wine from everyone else. Steve clipped his black velvet kippah onto his hair and fluffed the pillow on the chair next to him. He smiled at the holiday table full of friends and allowed himself to be happy for this moment. “Thank you for coming, everyone,” he said. “This means a lot to me.” 

“We’re glad to be here,” Pepper said. “Thank you for having us.” 

Steve nodded. “It’s Friday night. Natasha, want to do the honors with the candles?” 

“Okay.” Natasha picked up a small box of matches. 

Steve picked up his haggadah. “Page three. Natasha lights, and we all say the blessing. First in Hebrew, and then in English.”

  

 

It was the right house. The man was sure of that. There weren’t many houses this far out on the road, and he was fairly sure he had walked as far as his scribbled directions had told him to walk. In the fading light, he saw a sports car and an SUV parked in the driveway. The lights were on inside the house, and the man could hear voices. Steve America had guests. Well. This complicated things. 

The man circled the little house until he found the best vantage point, tucked up between the garage and a bush. He was far enough from the house that he could not be seen, but close enough to see into the brightly lit dining room. Steve America sat at the head of a table, with – the man counted – five guests. They were reading a story, and Steve America was smiling. Seeing him in person again was different from looking at the pictures. It made the man’s brain uncomfortable, and now his nose was stinging as well. Steve America was having a party with his friends. The man watched as they all raised glasses of wine to drink. He huddled deeper into the prickly shelter of the bush and wished that he could sit at that table and listen to the story that they were reading.


	2. A Song Of Ascents

**2\. A Song Of Ascents**

  

 

Leading a seder turned out to be not nearly as difficult as Steve had feared. He’d certainly seen enough people do it. He had grown up sitting wedged between his mother and Bucky as Mr. Barnes led, and then, for a few years, he and Bucky had been regular guests at the Freelanders’ down the hall. He hadn’t enjoyed the impersonal Army seders nearly as much, though the food was at least mildly better than ration cans. In the new century, even after his brief move to Washington, he had made sure to return to New York to attend the community seders that Rabbi Bloch and Cantor Landauer led together, and they had always welcomed him with open arms. In fact, he had been a little bit self-conscious about his decision to host a seder this year, and had e-mailed Debbie Landauer in advance to apologize for missing the one in the city. She had written back a few hours later. 

_No need to apologize. :) We’ll miss you, but you should have a good Pesach with your friends. You’ll do just fine leading! Stop by the next time you’re in the city, and tell me all about it.  
_

_A zisn Pesach  
_

_Cantor Debbie_

In the end, as with so many other things, it came down to storytelling and enjoying each other’s company. Steve guided the seder along, but everyone contributed to the momentum. Wanda managed to look both shy and proud at once as she read the four questions. Tony and Pepper improvised a little skit about an Israelite furtively attempting to borrow a cup of lamb’s blood from an Egyptian neighbor. Sam and Natasha read their paragraphs with gripping dramatic flare, and everyone pounded enthusiastically on the table as they sang “Dayenu” in six different keys at the tops of their lungs, because there were no neighbors close enough to be bothered.

  

 

The darkness had settled in fully, and the man knew that he would be completely invisible to anyone looking out the window now. Still, he remained nestled in the bush, watching the storytelling dinner party. At least, he assumed it was a dinner party; Steve America and his guests sat at a fully set dinner table, but the storytelling had gone on for a while, with no sign of food. The man shifted position to relieve his aching back, although nothing ever really made the pain go away completely. The sound of singing distracted him, and he returned his attention to the window. 

Steve America and his guests were singing with more volume than melody, but the man found himself transfixed. A memory burbled up from the murky depths of his mind, and he knew the song they were singing. He tapped his right hand against his knee in the rhythm. “Day, dayenu,” he murmured. “Day, dayenu. Day, dayenu. Dayenu, dayenu.” He finished singing when the others did, and pulled his face into a smile when they laughed. It felt good, almost as though he were a part of their party.

  

 

“Whoo,” Sam gasped, his eyes streaming. “That is some powerful horseradish there.” 

Pepper laughed and passed him a napkin. “That’s what happens when you let Tony dare you,” she said. “Don’t feel too bad. He did it to me the first time I came to a seder.” 

“You really want the stuff with beet juice,” Natasha added. “That’s the stuff you eat with a spoon.” 

Sam laughed and shook his head. “Nope. You can eat it with a spoon. I’m going to eat this charoset stuff that Wanda made with my spoon.” 

Wanda dipped her head, but couldn’t quite manage to hide her smile. 

“Time for dinner,” Steve announced. “Natasha, can you collect the haggadot? Tony, want to help bring stuff out from the kitchen?” 

Tony grinned as he got up from the table. “Help serve? How quaint. Let’s see what the dishbots can do.” 

“What, they’re butlers as well as dishwashers?” Steve laughed. 

“Why not?” Tony said. “Butler bots. Buttlebots. Hey, that’s a good name for them.” 

The group responded with a collective groan. Natasha broke off a corner of a matzo cracker and pitched it at Tony, hitting him right between the eyes. Tony whirled around and mock-glared at her. “Ooo. I think we all know who’s not getting an extra matzo ball in her soup.” He snapped his fingers, and the newly-named buttlebots followed him into the kitchen. 

The buttlebots proved to be more entertaining than efficient at serving, although, to their credit and Tony’s, they didn’t spill too much soup. Steve shrugged off the accidents, since the tablecloth would have to be washed anyway, and concentrated on enjoying himself. He sipped the warm, salty broth and listened as Pepper described plans for a new medical prosthetics division of Stark Industries. Natasha passed around her phone with photos of Clint and Laura’s newest child. Sam and Tony both offered to take Wanda flying, a conversation that quickly devolved into comparisons of their respective suits. Pepper commented by way of a rude hand gesture that made Wanda giggle. 

On Tony’s advice, Steve had plated the gefilte fish when he had dished out the soup, and the buttlebots navigated the challenge of clearing away the first course and serving the second. Dishes clinked alarmingly in the kitchen, but there were no sounds of shattering china. Store-bought gefilte fish wasn’t quite as flavorful as Steve remembered his mother’s being, but he had to admit that he appreciated not having to acquire, kill, clean, and prepare a live carp on top of all the other preparation he had done. 

Sam leaned over to him. “You’re quiet tonight.” 

“Just a little tired.” Steve smiled. “I did spend all day cooking and getting the place ready.” 

“I hear that. You did a great job,” Sam said. “Just don’t forget to take care of yourself along with us.” 

Steve nodded. “I’ll try,” he said, which was as much as he felt he could say honestly. It seemed to be enough for Sam, who gave him a friendly pat on the shoulder and then retrieved his plate of gefilte fish from Natasha, who had reached across the table in an attempt to smother it with a large spoonful of raw grated horseradish.

  

 

The man’s stomach rumbled. He had not anticipated this situation when he planned the mission. He had hoped to be able to speak with Steve America immediately upon arrival, but the presence of the dinner party had taken him by surprise. This just showed that he was getting sloppy, which proved how much he needed to see Steve America again. The man watched through the window as the guests ate soup and fish patties and drank wine. Robots carried dishes away, and Steve America followed them into the kitchen. The robots brought bowls and plates of vegetables to the table, and Steve America followed, carrying a great platter of meat. The guests exclaimed in delight. 

The man shifted his position a little, and something made its presence felt in one of the pockets of his cargo pants. He investigated, and retrieved a pair of granola bars that he had shoplifted from a gas station a few days earlier. As Steve America and his guests feasted, the man unwrapped the first bar and took a bite. It was dry and crumbly and tasted more than a bit stale, but it was fuel, at least. Out of habit, the man crumpled the wrapper when he had finished the bar, and used his metal hand to bury it beneath the bush. This involved removing the glove on that hand, and he worked quickly, so that the gleam of the metal would not be visible from the window and betray his presence.

 

 

Steve was pleased to discover that the final hour of being kept warm in the oven had pushed the brisket over the edge from “fully cooked” to “falling-apart tender.” As he arranged the sliced meat on its platter, poured the sauce, and strewed carrots around it, he heard Natasha’s not-quite-stage-whisper of “Go, go, go,” and then a distinct rustling of pillowcase. He smiled to himself, and used the pretense of fetching a jar of nutmeg from the pantry to check to make sure that Wanda’s gift was still there, and that the bow had not been crushed. 

The buttlebots brought Sam’s asparagus and salad and Tony and Pepper’s tzimmes out to the table, but Steve carried the brisket himself, not quite trusting the buttlebots not to spill meat juice and sauce all over the floor. Conversation at the table soon died down into the quiet sounds of contented eaters. 

“Tony, Pepper, this is excellent tzimmes,” Steve said. 

Pepper and Tony exchanged a glance. “It’s Tony’s grandmother’s recipe,” Pepper explained. “JARVIS has it stored in a file, both a scan of the card with her original handwriting and a typed version. We thought it would be the right recipe to use when you called to ask us.” 

“It’s delicious. Thank you.” Steve imagined Howard Stark eating the same tzimmes as a boy, perhaps plotting ways to sneak an extra spoonful, and had to cover up a pang of strange feeling in his chest with a large sip of wine. Natasha reached over and gave his hand a squeeze. 

“Lot of ghosts tonight?” she asked. 

Steve shrugged. “Well. Family holidays, you know?” Then he remembered who he was talking to. “Sorry. Didn’t mean it like that.” 

“Don’t worry about it. Besides, there’s a lot you don’t know about my life.” 

Steve had no doubt that this was true. Natasha squeezed his hand once more and then demanded a second helping of Sam’s radish and mint salad. Sam playfully threatened to contaminate it with horseradish, and the conversation began to pick up again. Steve’s mood brightened a little at the beeping noises that the buttlebots made as they cleared the plates. 

And no dark mood could survive the lemon sponge cake with raspberry sauce that he had prepared for dessert. As foreign as the twenty-first century still seemed sometimes, Steve had to admit that it had its advantages, including the best quality sponge cake ingredients he had ever had, and electrically powered egg beaters that made the task far less daunting. The sponge cake had been easy enough that Steve had made a second, smaller cake just so there would be plenty left over to serve at breakfast the next morning, which struck him as the height of luxury. 

The buttlebots cleared away the dessert, and Natasha passed around the haggadot to a table of full, contented Avengers. Now came the moment that Steve had been looking forward to all evening. It was time for the afikoman, the final piece of matzo, which Steve had carefully set aside with great ritual fanfare beneath the pillow on the chair next to him. Now, he took a deep breath and thought of the way that he and Bucky and Becca and Ida had giggled through the drama that Mr. Barnes had made of this moment. 

“Hope you all saved a little bit of room,” he said, “because there’s just one thing left to eat. We have to have the afikoman, the ritual dessert.” 

“Such a letdown after that cake,” Tony put in. “I feel like that should be a metaphor for something or other.” 

Steve smiled. “Letdown or not, we have to have it. We have to do things in order, and why is that?” 

Wanda raised her hand, and then promptly snatched it down again. “Because seder means order.” 

“Point for Wanda,” Steve said. “She’s now my new favorite Avenger.” Sam chuckled, and Natasha’s smile took on a distinctly predatory quality. Steve ignored them and turned to the pillow. “So now I’m going to take our dessert out from the special place where I’ve kept it safe for us, and – oh no!” He raised the pillow to reveal the empty place where the wrapped bit of matzo was not. 

The guests all burst into laughter and teasing. Tony suggested that they had a better grip on Loki’s scepter than on a piece of cracker, and Natasha volunteered to frisk him. Tony’s eyebrows shot up at the suggestion. “Thoroughly and painfully, I assume?” Pepper asked. 

“But of course.” Natasha batted her eyelashes outrageously at Tony. 

“Don’t look at me,” Sam chuckled. “The only thing I’m hiding is the horseradish. From Natasha.” 

“Pepper, don’t lie to me,” Steve said, enjoying himself. “I see you sitting there, looking all innocent and businesslike.” 

“Not on me!” Pepper sang, and she got up from the table and danced in a little circle. “See, nothing falls out.” 

Wanda could contain herself no longer. “Look at you,” she cried happily. “The Avengers, Earth’s mightiest heroes. Such fools.” 

“What,” Tony said. “Are you saying you know something, you little witch?” 

Wanda looked mysterious. “All information has its price.” 

“So that’s your game,” Steve said. “Extortion.” 

“A trade.” Wanda pulled a lock of hair over her face. “An exchange of equal value. Just the way you capitalists like it.” 

“Equal value?” Steve was enjoying this. “How much do you think SHIELD pays me? If we don’t have that afikoman, we’ll be here all night!” He spread his hands for dramatic effect, and Natasha tickled one palm with her nail. He tried to glare at her, but failed miserably. 

Wanda leaned towards him. “Then it must be worth the greatest treasure that you have,” she said, and then sat back with a satisfied smirk on her face. 

It was time. Steve slumped his shoulders. “If I’m going to give you such a great treasure, I have to see proof that you have the afikoman,” he said. “We’ll do an equal and honorable exchange. Treasure for afikoman, at the same time, okay?” 

Wanda nodded, got up from her chair, and left the room. Steve rose as well, hurried to the pantry, and retrieved her wrapped gift. Wanda returned to the table and came to stand next to Steve’s chair. Slowly, with as much dramatic mugging as he thought he could get away with, Steve exchanged the gift for the matzo, and then nodded to Wanda that she could open it right away. He set the matzo aside and watched as Wanda removed the ribbon and opened the package neatly, so as not to damage the wrapping paper. 

She pulled out a photograph of herself and Pietro, one of a set of images of the entire team that Vision had recorded for identification purposes just before they had left to fight Ultron. In the photograph, the two of them looked a little frightened, but excited and determined to do the right thing. Steve had asked Vision to transfer his recordings to sturdy paper, and had found a pretty frame for the image at a craft store. Wanda stared at it for a long moment with wide eyes.

  

 

Outside, the man gazed intently into the window, the second granola bar lying half-eaten and forgotten on the ground at his feet. The girl was familiar, but not in the vague, half-remembered way that Steve America was familiar. The man had a distinct memory of having seen the girl once or twice. She had lived for a while chained up in a dark cell, at the mercy of the same people who had kept him and controlled every move that he made. She had had a brother, he remembered, although he didn’t seem to be at the party now. He remembered feeling strange, the few times that he had seen her. He felt sorry for her, because he knew that she was an experimental subject, as he had been, and he knew how much that hurt. On the other hand, she had her brother with her, and he had burned with painful jealousy every time he saw them together. 

She must have been made to do terrible things, just as he had. And now, she was a guest at Steve America’s table. He had even given her a gift. From his vantage point, the man couldn’t quite make out what the gift was. But as he watched, the girl’s face crumpled, as if she were about to cry. Her hand flew to her mouth, and she set the gift on the table quickly, as if she were afraid to drop it. Then she threw her arms around Steve America, and he returned the embrace, smiling into her hair. 

The man sat back against the prickly support of the bush. Something almost like hope flared inside him. If this girl, who had come from the same place as he did, could work her way up so far that she was not only invited to dine with Steve America, but received a special, precious gift as well, then perhaps Steve America might look kindly on him. He took a deep breath and renewed his determination to himself. He would approach Steve America tonight. No matter how long he had to wait for the party to break up, he would stay here until the time came. If he was patient enough, maybe Steve America would smile at him the way he had smiled at the girl.

  

 

After they had eaten the afikomen, which Tony declared rounded off the meal with the perfect note of cardboard, and Sam had filled all the wine glasses again, Steve made a last-minute change to his plan. He had originally intended to read the psalm after the festive meal himself, to call the group back to order. But, as he skimmed over the text, he knew that he would never make it to the end without weeping, and tonight was meant to be festive. So he asked all of the guests to join hands and read it together. 

“When the Lord brought the exiles back to Zion, we were as in a dream,” they read. Steve could already feel his hands shaking, and he squeezed Sam and Natasha’s hands for support. They squeezed back, and Steve managed to get through the psalm without breaking down. He noticed that Wanda grew suspiciously misty at “They who sow in tears shall reap in joy,” and he was impressed that she had held out that long. His own voice had started shaking well before that point. He was relieved when the psalm finished, and they could move on to the grace after the meal. From the shared glances and occasional pauses as they went around the table reading paragraphs, Steve guessed that he and Wanda were not the only ones thinking of absent loved ones tonight. 

The time to go through the grace did seem to allow everyone to recover, and the third cup of wine brought a welcome break from the memories. As much as Natasha had urged him to try what she called the “real wine,” Steve had insisted on the plain, sweet grape wine that he had purchased. He was glad that he had stuck to his guns, because the flavor never failed to make him smile. 

“That was a lot of reading,” Tony said. “I need some wine after that. You always do the whole after-dinner bit, Cap?” 

Steve shrugged. “There didn’t really seem to be any good places for cuts in the grace,” he replied. “Maybe later on, though. There’s some prose that we could skip, I think. Sam, you’re up again. Last time.” 

“Got it.” Sam rose and went to the side table where Steve had put the wine bottles for easy access. “Anyone wants to change wines, speak now.” 

There was some commotion as wine glasses were checked and refilled, and Steve nodded to Wanda. “Last job for the youngest, you get to go open the door for the prophet Elijah.” 

Wanda laughed. “And he will drink his wine while I am gone, yes? I will come back and there will be less in his cup.” She got up from the table and leaned down to whisper in Steve’s ear. “My father used to take a sip when I went to the door. He thought I didn’t notice, but I did. But I played along, because it made him happy.” 

Steve smiled at her, and she left the room. He motioned for everyone to stand up and raise their wine glasses.

  

 

The girl who could create visions rose to leave the table, but bent over to say something to Steve America first. The man hauled himself to his feet. If the guests were starting to leave, then his moment was at hand. He would re-position himself beside the door, so as to be ready as soon as the party broke up. As he stumbled around toward the front of the house, he found that he was trembling a little. Perhaps it was cold, or hunger, or nerves. He wasn’t sure. He thought that it was most likely nerves, from the knot that settled in his gut. Very soon, he would look on Steve America’s face, and his life would change. He had lived for so long without desires that the sensation of wanting had come as a painful shock to him. But that ache melted away before the burning terror of knowing that an answer to his desires lay just on the other side of the door. 

He had intended to move to a pool of shadow just beyond the door, but found that his feet would carry him no further. That door hid his answers, and he had to be there when it opened. So he stayed, bathed in the glow from the small light that hung over the door, sucking in deep breaths in a vain effort to steady his nerves.

  

 

“You ready, Wanda?” Steve called. He turned back to the table. “When she opens the door, we’ll read the next paragraph together, holding our wine glasses. Okay, Wanda. Open the door.” 

He heard the click of the deadbolt. But before they could begin to read, Wanda gave a short, shocked “Oh!” And Steve heard her wineglass crash to the floor and shatter.


	3. Next Year In Jerusalem

**3\. Next Year In Jerusalem**

  

 

In an instant, Sam bolted towards the door, with Natasha hot on his heels from the other side of the table. Steve spared a moment to glance over and make sure that Pepper was safe. Tony nodded at him, and Steve hurried over to the door. Sam spun around and caught him just as he arrived. 

“Breathe easy, Steve,” he said, and then adjusted his grip on Steve and moved aside so that Steve could see. 

A tiny part of his brain noted that Wanda was fine except for a deeply confused look on her face. But the only thing that really registered was the gaunt, hungry-looking man standing in the glow of the outside light. His left arm seemed too large for his body, and the hand was jammed into his pocket. His stringy hair was half tucked into a grubby ball cap. The last time that Steve had seen the man’s face, he had been lying half-conscious on a falling helicarrier as a living weapon who had once been the other half of him stopped just before driving a metal fist through his skull. Steve’s one clear memory of that moment was the expression of horror as someone who might once have been Bucky Barnes looked out from the Winter Soldier’s eyes. The same person stared at him now from his beloved friend’s face, his eyes just as wide as they had been that day. Steve could do little more than stare back, utterly transfixed. 

After a moment, the jumbled sounds in his ear resolved themselves. Sam tightened his hands on Steve’s shoulders, one arm behind Steve’s back for support. “Stay with us, Steve,” he was saying. “You have to stay with us. You have to deal with this. Stay strong. Don’t go down. Stay present.” 

Natasha stood between Wanda and Bucky, watching him and waiting. 

There was a soft “Oh, shit” from his other side, and Steve realized that Tony was standing there, clutching Pepper’s hand. For a long moment, no one moved. 

At last, Bucky found his voice, hoarse and halting. “Please,” he said, his eyes boring directly into Steve’s. “Help. I can’t go on.” 

“Oh my God,” Tony said softly.

Natasha didn’t take her eyes off of Bucky, but her posture became less rigid. “He’s not going to hurt anyone,” she said, though Steve couldn’t tell if she meant it as an assurance to him or as a warning to Bucky. “Not tonight.”

There was silence for a moment, and then Pepper cleared her throat. “Excuse me,” she said. “I know I’m the shiksa at the table, but wasn’t there something a few hours ago about inviting hungry people in to join us?” 

“No!” Tony spat out. “Pepper, darling, light of my life, you know that I love you more than life itself, but are you out of your mind? Do you have any idea what kind of damage this guy has done? How many people he’s killed? You saw those files that Natasha dumped last year. You know what he did to –“ 

“I know,” Pepper said. “But this is . . . I don’t think he’s the same person as he was then.” 

“Yeah? How many lives do you want to bet on that?” 

Pepper’s voice grew firmer. “Clint stayed on the team, didn’t he? And you’ve been at the same table with Wanda all evening.” 

“This is different,” Tony growled. 

Sam squeezed Steve’s shoulders gently. “Steve? Your house, your call.” 

Steve opened his mouth, but his voice failed. He stretched out his arms, but could not quite bring himself to move forward, half fearing that, if he touched Bucky, Bucky would evaporate, as he had done so often in Steve’s dreams. Natasha caught his eye and gave a crisp nod before turning to Bucky. 

“It’s all right,” she said. “Come in.”

“Nobody will hurt you,” Wanda added. 

Bucky hesitated for a few eternal seconds, and then stepped inside, his gaze still firmly fixed on Steve. Wanda shut the door behind him. Bucky took another step, and another, and then took his left hand out of his pocket and removed his gloves. His metal hand gleamed in the lamplight. Slowly, he placed his hands in Steve’s, first his right and then his left. The metal hand was warmer than Steve had expected, and something inside it whirred and vibrated almost soothingly. Bucky’s right hand was cold and shaking. Steve clasped both, trying to believe that he was actually holding Bucky’s hands. 

Bucky took another step forward, so close that he was almost touching Steve. He closed his eyes and dropped his head onto Steve’s shoulder. A shudder rippled through his body. “Steve,” he said, the name flowing out on a soft breath. “Steve Rogers.” 

Steve nodded. “Yeah,” he choked out. “Bucky Barnes.” 

Bucky shivered again. Steve slid an arm around Bucky. “Come on. Come back to the table with us.” 

Bucky nodded, and allowed Steve and Sam to guide him into the house. Wanda nudged Steve. “Be careful,” she said. “I dropped my glass. I’m sorry. He startled me.” 

Steve managed a vague smile in Wanda’s general direction. “It’s just a glass,” he said. “It’s not important.” 

“We’ll get one of Stark’s buttlebots to clean it up,” Natasha said. She darted into the kitchen and returned a moment later, shooing one of the buttlebots in front of her. 

Between them, Steve and Sam got Bucky settled into the extra chair at the table, where Steve had hidden the afikomen beneath a pillow. Pepper directed Tony to sit down as well, and then got a good look at Bucky. 

“You must be starving,” she said. “It’s a good thing we had so much food. You sit there. I’ll bring you something to eat.” She stepped into the kitchen to make a plate for Bucky. 

For his part, Bucky glanced over the table without seeming to take in much. He scooted his chair close to Steve’s and leaned against Steve’s shoulder again. Tony watched them from the other end of the table. He fidgeted with his haggadah and chewed his lip, but he said nothing, and Steve was grateful for that. 

Bucky perked up a little bit when Pepper returned with a plate of brisket, tzimmes, asparagus, and salad, with a piece of gefilte fish and dabs of charoset and horseradish on the side. Sam poured wine into a coffee mug, since Steve had no more wine glasses, and set it next to Bucky’s plate. Bucky sniffed at the food, and blinked. A strange expression flitted across his face. He reached for a piece of sweet potato with his metal hand, then stopped and picked up his fork instead. Steve tried to let go of Bucky’s right hand so that he could eat, but Bucky gripped him hard. He seemed to be adept enough with the metal hand, and, truth be told, Steve was happy not to have to lose the tangible proof that Bucky was actually sitting next to him at the table. 

He knew that he ought to call everyone back to order and continue the seder, but his voice still didn’t seem to be working properly. Natasha caught his eye and flashed a quick, sympathetic smile. 

“Tony, maybe you’d better take it from here,” she said quietly. “I don’t really know how to do it.” 

Tony blinked, mildly surprised at the suggestion. He shot another glance at Bucky, but Bucky did nothing but lean on Steve and eat small bites from his plate. Tony took a deep breath and picked up his haggadah. 

“Where were we?” he muttered, half to himself. “Oh, right. We opened the door for Elijah, and we got . . . not Elijah. I think that ship’s probably sailed. What comes next? Oh. More psalms. Okay. We can do a couple of these.” He glanced around the table. “I guess I’ll read the first one. Pepper, you take the next one, and Natasha after that.” He took one more glance at Bucky, and then settled down to read. 

Relieved of responsibility, Steve let the poetry wash over him. Bucky’s hand was warm in his, and Bucky’s body was a reassuring weight at Steve’s side. He hadn’t had much to say for himself, but he hadn’t tried to kill anyone, and he had known Steve’s name. That was a start, Steve told himself. He could work with that. 

Pepper was reading her psalm now. Bucky listened intently, picking at his food, and taking deep breaths. He no longer wore the desperate, haunted expression on his face that he had when Wanda had opened the door. His eyes were still wide, but he seemed alert, almost as if waiting for something. 

“Okay, enough of those psalms,” Tony said. “Let’s skip a bit. Um. Oh. This bit is responsive. We can all play. Sam, want to take the lead on this?” 

Sam nodded, and cleared his throat. “Give thanks to the Eternal, for He is good,” he read. 

“For His mercy endures forever,” Steve chorused with the rest of them. The psalm was long, and the rhythm was hypnotic. Bucky leaned heavily on Steve, no longer even pretending to eat. Tears streaked through the grime on his face, and his mouth moved along with the repetitions of “For His mercy endures forever,” but he didn’t make a sound. Steve turned his face toward Bucky, closed his eyes for a moment, and tried to swallow the ache in his throat.

  

 

The man who had most recently called himself “James” sat stunned and overwhelmed in his chair. The room was warm and bright, and the food on the plate in front of him was rich and flavorful in his mouth. The other guests at the table chanted a poem in gentle, soothing voices. Steve Rogers – no longer Steve America, but someone more human and more precious – was a comfortable, solid presence at his side. And all around him was a tantalizing, intoxicating smell. It was warm and sweet and spicy, and there was a little bit of sharpness that curled in the back of his nose. The smell wrapped around him, and he thought that nothing that smelled like that could ever hurt him. 

Images flashed in his mind, as sometimes happened on the rare occasions when he was warm and could relax for a while. His images never lasted long, and they weren’t always pleasant, but he enjoyed having them, especially the ones that showed a boy with a shock of blond hair, blue eyes, and a shy smile. Now, he had images that he thought he had never had before. There was a room with a table, much like the room he was in now, but more people crowded around a smaller table. There were children as well as adults, and he thought that the blond boy sat among them. They were eating and drinking and telling a story, and the same rich, sweet scent filled the room. 

He blinked, and the image receded a little bit, but did not drain entirely from his mind. He glanced around the room he was in, and saw how much it resembled the room in the image. Steve Rogers gave a ragged little sigh, and the man noticed that he had the same eyes as the blond boy in the image. There was something about the mouth as well. A rush of warmth flooded through his body, as he realized that Steve Rogers had once been the little blond boy in his image. The scent of wine and spices filled his nose, and he knew what it meant. He gripped Steve Rogers’s hand a little tighter, and Steve Rogers looked at him. The chanting voices stopped. 

“Steve,” he said softly. “It’s Passover.” 

Steve Rogers nodded, and his face glowed with a smile. “Yeah, Bucky,” he said. “It’s Passover. You and me at the seder table.” 

The image had been real. The man smiled at the thought. It had been a wonderfully comforting image, and he wanted to keep it.

 

 

Tony Stark’s sharp eyes did not miss the effect that the reading had on Bucky. With just a glance at Steve, he skipped over the next few prose paragraphs until he found more poetry. “Let’s make this more challenging,” he said. “Everyone gets a verse. Start us off, Wanda.” 

Instead of going around the table, as Steve had done, Tony took control of the poem, pointing at the next person to read as they all chorused the refrain of “It happened at midnight.” 

He did not point at Steve until the penultimate verse. Steve rallied enough to murmur the text, his voice strained to the breaking point. “Like the watchman, You will reply: ‘The morning has come, just as the night.’” 

“It happened at midnight,” the others replied. 

Tony looked at Bucky. “One more verse,” he said.

Bucky shuddered against Steve. Steve freed his hand from Bucky’s and put his arm around Bucky’s shoulders. “It’s all right,” he said. “You can read it if you want to.” 

“It’s Passover,” Bucky said again, as if seeking confirmation. 

“Yeah.” 

“I know Passover.” Bucky nudged Steve’s haggadah so that he could see it better. Haltingly, and so quietly that he could barely be heard, he stumbled through the verse, and each word seemed to come with great effort. When Bucky had finished, he dropped his head back onto Steve’s shoulder and took a few gasping breaths. 

“It happened at midnight,” came the final reply. 

The world went a little blurry for Steve after that. He thought that Tony must have skipped a bit more, because he heard the blessing over the fourth cup of wine, and something tasted sweet in his mouth. Bucky relaxed against him, a little more with each blessing that his friends read. Steve gave himself over to their strong, warm voices and concentrated on supporting Bucky’s weight. 

“Next year in Jerusalem,” he whispered, and Bucky’s metal hand came up to rest on his arm. The touch was gentle, almost surprisingly so in the face of what Steve knew that that metal hand could do, and it left Steve convinced that something profound had happened in the year since their last encounter. A year ago, that hand had belonged to the Winter Soldier; tonight, it belonged to Bucky Barnes. Steve hummed a little and rested his head on Bucky’s. 

Dishes clinked, and Bucky startled, rousing Steve as well. One of the buttlebots was trying to remove Bucky’s half-eaten plate from the table, and Bucky swung his metal hand around to push it away. “No,” he said. “Passover. Smells warm.” 

“Okay,” Pepper said, as she hurried to disengage the buttlebot. “You can keep your food. We’re not going to take it away from you. We’re just trying to clean up a bit.” 

Steve blinked. Panic flooded through him, tinged with more than a bit of shame. He should be clearing the table and showing his guests where they would sleep tonight. “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice slurring. “You shouldn’t have to . . . let me take care of . . .” 

“Steve, no.” Sam’s hand came down on his shoulder. “Let it be. You’re not in any shape to do this.” 

“This is why Tony brought the bots,” Pepper added. “He’s in the kitchen . . . supervising them right now. That’s exactly where he wants to be. Just let him do that.” 

Sam nodded at Bucky. “You need to take care of him right now. He needs you.” 

“How about if we get you guys over to the couch?” Natasha asked. “You’re both pretty wrecked.” 

“I can’t,” Steve murmured. “I should be . . . I need to . . . you’re my guests . . .” 

“Don’t worry about it,” Pepper said. “You’ve done a lot of work already for us. We’re happy to help you with this.” 

“Yeah,” Sam added. “This is not normal circumstances. Best thing you can do right now is go and sit on the couch and keep your buddy comfortable. Let your team do the rest.” 

Gently, Natasha pried Bucky off of Steve, and Steve let Sam guide him from the table to the sofa. Bucky curled up against him as soon as he was settled, but he was tense and trembling in Steve’s embrace. Pepper brought Bucky’s plate and set it on the coffee table where Bucky could see it, but Bucky did not relax, and fresh tears dribbled down his face. 

“Bucky?” Steve asked. “Buck, what’s wrong?” 

“Want . . . Passover,” Bucky managed. 

“Oh!” Wanda hurried to the table and retrieved the seder plate and Elijah’s cup. She set them on the coffee table next to Bucky’s food. Bucky took a deep breath, and his shaking eased. 

“It’s the smell,” Wanda said. She turned to Natasha. “I saw him breathing.” 

Natasha looked proud. “Good job.” 

Steve took a deep breath, not quite willing to relinquish his job as host just yet. “You’re all welcome to stay here overnight,” he said. “This sofa pulls out, and there’s a bed and an air mattress in the guest room. I’ll make breakfast tomorrow morning. There’s cake and fruit, and I can make matzo brei.” 

Sam looked puzzled. Natasha glanced at him. “Don’t worry, you’ll like it. It’s kind of like French toast.” 

Pepper went into the kitchen and returned a few minutes later. She crouched down by the sofa. “Steve, honey, please don’t take this the wrong way,” she said. “I think that Tony and I are going to stay at a hotel tonight. We appreciate your offer, but I think Tony would be a little more comfortable somewhere else.” 

Tony wandered in from the kitchen just as Pepper finished her explanation, the buttlebots bleeping quietly at his heels. “Great party, Cap,” he said, flashing a smile that didn’t quite cover the troubled frown on his face. “Appreciate it. It’s just . . . well . . .”

Steve nodded. “I get it. I’m sorry.” 

“You don’t get it,” Tony said, “but . . . thanks for the thought.” He looked at Bucky, and his mouth twitched. “How’s he doing? Looks like you’ve got your hands full there.” 

Bucky’s breathing was soft and even, and he seemed hypnotized by the wine glass and seder plate, but he wasn’t asleep. He shivered, and let out a sigh. Steve rubbed the back of Bucky’s neck. “I’m not sure. There’s so much . . . I don’t even know what I’m feeling right now.” 

“Probably exhausted.” Pepper leaned down and kissed Steve’s forehead, and patted Bucky’s back. “We’re going to go to the hotel now and let you get some rest.”

“Will you come back for breakfast?”

Tony and Pepper exchanged a glance. Tony shrugged. “We’ll come back, at least. I thought the bots could stay here overnight, and we can come pick them up in the morning. We’ll see about breakfast.” 

“If nothing else, I will be picking up a piece of that cake for the road,” Pepper said. “Good night. You did a wonderful job with the seder.” 

She glanced at Tony. Tony attempted a smile, but failed halfway through. He compromised by waggling his fingers vaguely in Steve and Bucky’s direction, and then he and Pepper left the house. 

Steve looked at his remaining guests. “How about you three?” 

Sam was staring at Bucky, who was curled against Steve. “I’m staying,” he said. “You need someone here to help, at least for tonight. Natasha, you can take the car if you want.” 

Natasha shook her head. “Nah. If it comes to it, I’m probably better prepared to help than you are.” 

“Probably true.” Sam shrugged. “Wanda? Want me to drop you anywhere?”

Wanda shook her head. “I think I could help as well.” She dropped to her knees and laid a hand on Bucky’s shoulder. Almost reluctantly, he tore his gaze away from the seder plate that she had set out for him and looked at her. She asked him a question in Russian, and he considered it for a few moments. Then he nodded. 

“What was that about?” Steve asked. 

“A little something to help him sleep tonight,” Wanda said. “The scent of the Passover table calms him. I can give it to him for the rest of the night.” 

“Oh.” Steve blinked. “That’s . . . kind of you.” 

“Would you like help as well?” 

Steve shook his head. “Just in case there’s an emergency. One of us shouldn’t be too far gone.” 

Sam nodded his approval. “All right,” he said. “I think it’s time to turn in. Who goes where?” 

Steve patted Bucky’s shoulder. “Bucky? Want to go to bed?” 

Bucky twisted his head up to look at Steve. “The cushions go on the floor.” 

That made Steve laugh, even as tears pricked the edges of his eyes. “We can do better than that, Buck,” he said. “We can make it into a real bed.” 

Sam and Natasha helped Steve unfold the sofa. Out of the corner of his eye, Steve saw the scarlet glow as Wanda implanted the scent of the Passover table in Bucky’s mind. When the bed was ready, Steve wished the others good night. Sam would be sleeping in Steve’s bedroom, while Natasha and Wanda would be sharing the guest room. 

After they had departed, Steve stripped first himself and then Bucky down to undershirts and shorts. They curled up, fitting their bodies together as they had done on cold nights during the war. The thin pullout mattress was just hard enough. Lulled by Wanda’s illusion, and probably exhausted from whatever he had been doing before he appeared at Steve’s door, Bucky dropped off to sleep almost immediately. Steve tried to stay awake for a while, just to savor the good fortune that he couldn’t quite believe, to breathe in the scent of Bucky’s unwashed hair. But in the end, weariness as deep as any he had experienced after a battle claimed him, and he fell asleep between one breath and the next.


	4. Who Knows One?

**4\. Who Knows One?**

  

 

As exhausted as he was, Steve’s sleep was troubled that night. Strange dreams came to him, most of which he forgot as soon as they faded. He couldn’t seem to shake a particularly frightening dream in which Bucky screamed and screamed as he flew through the air while Steve chased him from muddy ground that seemed to grab at his feet. He came out of it gasping and panicked, to find that Sam had a calm, steadying hand on his shoulder. 

“Steve, dude, it’s okay,” Sam murmured. “You’re on the pullout sofa. Barnes is right next to you, and he’s fine. Not going anywhere.” Sam switched his phone on, and in its dim glow, Steve could see Bucky sleeping at his side, his metal arm gleaming. 

“You can go back to sleep,” Sam said. “We’ve all got your back here. We’ll take care of things. You’ve got some more time to sleep.” 

He smoothed out the covers where Steve had twisted them around his body, and switched his phone off. In the darkness, Steve reached out and twined his fingers through Bucky’s metal ones. Something in the hand whirred, but Bucky did not wake up. Steve let the soft electronic sounds guide him back to sleep as well.

 

 

Steve awoke to hazy sunshine and Bucky contemplating him from the other half of the bed with a fond, puzzled smile on his face. Steve blinked, but the image didn’t vanish, and it didn’t melt into something sad or surreal. It wasn’t a dream. The night had passed, and it was morning. “Bucky?” he whispered. 

Bucky thought for a moment. “Maybe,” he said. “Not really sure who that is yet. I think . . .” His smile faded, and his gaze turned inward. 

“What do you think?” Steve asked, after a moment. 

“Don’t really know enough,” Bucky said. “But some days, I think, I’d like to be him.” 

Steve buried his face in his pillow so that the internal battle between grief and tentative happiness wouldn’t show. He looked up again after he had succeeded in shoving the grief aside. “Bucky’s a good person to be,” he said. “One of the best.” 

Bucky nodded, and Steve thought he saw hope in his expression. “That’s good to hear,” he said. 

Steve smiled. “How about breakfast? Do you remember matzo brei?” 

Bucky thought for a moment. “Maybe. I think I might need a reminder. Something tangible.” 

He gazed earnestly at Steve for a moment, and then cracked an impish smile. Steve laughed out loud, a little surprised at himself. “Funny man. Let’s put the sofa back together and get cleaned up, and then we’ll get the food going.”

  

 

A little while later, Steve was frying matzo while Bucky and the buttlebots set the table. Steve decided that the buttlebots had done an acceptable job at dishwashing, and they had certainly made the previous evening bearable. He would have to thank Tony when he came to retrieve them later. Thinking of Tony reminded him that Pepper would want a piece of sponge cake, so he retrieved it from the pantry and arranged a few slices on a plate. He gave the plate to the nearest buttlebot, and went to get the seder plate and the cup of Elijah that had been sitting near the sofa overnight. As convenient as the buttlebots were, Steve wanted to wash those by hand. 

He heard the shower running, and eventually, Sam, Natasha, and Wanda appeared. Natasha and Wanda brought tea, coffee, and orange juice to the table and sat down to talk with Bucky in Russian. Sam followed Steve into the kitchen and held a large serving bowl while Steve scooped matzo brei into it. 

“How’s everyone doing this morning?” Sam asked in a low voice. 

Steve shrugged. “All right. I think. He’s more coherent now than he was last night. I don’t know how much he actually remembers, but he seems to have some ideas.” 

“Mm-hm. And how about you?” 

Steve stopped scooping matzo brei for a moment, balled his hands into fists, and stared at the frying pan. “I don’t know,” he gritted out. “I don’t know whether I want to laugh or cry or scream, or just do all three at once.” He sighed, and cracked more eggs into a bowl. 

Sam waited for a few seconds, watching as Steve beat the eggs with a fork. “That sounds like a pretty reasonable reaction for right now.” 

“Is it?” Steve pulled more matzo from the box, and crumbled it into a second bowl, taking a shameful bit of pleasure at the minor act of destruction. “I thought about how it would feel to have him back. I thought I would feel something – anything – more clearly than this. If I can’t even – how am I supposed to help him?” His hands shook, and he nearly dropped the matzo bowl. 

Sam set the serving bowl on the counter and, telegraphing his moves, put his hands on Steve’s shoulders. “We’re going to have that conversation. But not right now. Right now, we’re going to make breakfast, and you’re going to sit with him and feel whatever you want to feel. Got that? One thing at a time. Breakfast first. Heavy stuff later.” 

“Okay.” Steve nodded, and took a deep breath. 

“Good,” Sam said, and released Steve. “Now, you’re going to show me how you turn those cardboard crackers into this tasty-looking stuff in the bowl.”

 

 

Tony and Pepper arrived an hour later, by which time the others had settled in for a leisurely meal, nibbling at cake, fruit, and matzo brei drenched in maple syrup. Bucky still didn’t have much to say, but he seemed more alert than he had been the previous evening, and much more able to cope with the food in front of him. He had even gone to the refrigerator and added a spoonful of leftover charoset to his plate, much to Wanda’s delight. He looked up when Natasha brought Tony and Pepper in, and stiffened a little, clearly unsure whether to be friendly or to run and hide. 

“Good morning,” Steve said, making sure to keep his voice light and his smile easy. “Was the hotel okay? Plenty of food here, and I can make more matzo brei if we run low.” 

Tony stood awkwardly by the table, not quite willing to sit down. Pepper showed no such reservation, but took the seat next to Wanda. “I would love a cup of coffee, if you’ve got one,” she said. “And some of that delicious cake, because cake for breakfast is absolutely a treat.” Wanda got up to pour coffee from the pot at the other end of the table, and Bucky shyly slid the plate of cake pieces towards Pepper. 

Pepper smiled at him. “I don’t think we’ve actually been introduced,” she said. “I’m Pepper Potts. I’m a friend of Steve’s, and I run things for this one over here.” She tossed her head to indicate Tony, who had moved to perch on one arm of the sofa, and who was watching the table silently. 

Bucky considered what Pepper had told him for a few seconds, and then nodded to her, his mouth twitching as if he wanted to smile but couldn’t quite remember how to do it. “My name is James,” he said. “Steve calls me Bucky.” 

“That sounds friendly. May I call you Bucky, too?” 

Bucky looked puzzled for a moment and then nodded. 

Pepper raised her coffee cup in his general direction. “It’s nice to meet you, Bucky. Steve’s told us a little bit about you.” 

Bucky shot a nervous glance at Steve. Steve shrugged, and smiled a little at him. “Only the good stuff,” he said. 

Bucky gave him a strange look, and then became very interested in his breakfast. 

Tony waited, fidgeting impatiently, until Pepper had finished her coffee and half of her piece of cake before starting to jingle his keys in his pocket. Pepper raised her eyebrows at him, and deliberately ate the rest of her cake in small, polite bites. When she was finished, she stood up and came around the table to put her hand on Steve’s arm. 

“We have a ways to go, so I think we’ll head out now,” she said. “Steve, thank you so much for inviting us to your seder. You did a wonderful job at it. Would you mind if we took a couple of pieces of cake for car snacks?” 

“Go right ahead.” Steve got up and went to the kitchen. “Here’s your tzimmes container. The bots washed it along with the rest of the dishes. You can carry the cake in it. Help yourself.” 

Pepper cut a few slices from the second cake that Steve had made and placed them into the tzimmes container. Steve went outside and helped Tony to set up the ramp so that the buttlebots could leave the house and be loaded into Tony’s SUV. “Thank you for helping out, last night,” Steve said quietly, as the bots trundled down the ramp. “I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t been there to take over.”

Tony made an effort to smile. “Glad I could help,” he said. “Keep things cool and in order, you know?” 

Steve chuckled appreciatively, even though it wasn’t all that funny. He and Tony loaded the bots into the SUV just as Pepper emerged, followed by Wanda. 

“We’ve got room in the car, right?” Pepper asked. “I figured we could drop Wanda back at her place, since it’s on our way.” 

“No problem,” Tony said. “Just don’t mind-zap me while I’m driving. This thing is great for transporting bots, but it handles like a sled.” 

Wanda laughed. “Got it.” She turned to Steve and wrapped him in a hug. “Thank you for everything,” she said. “It made me feel human again, to have something like that. I missed it.” 

“Me, too,” Steve said. 

Wanda pulled away from the hug, but clasped Steve’s hands. “Take care of Bucky,” she said. “He is not well, but he has hope. It’s hard to come back from what they did to him, and alone, it’s even harder. He needs you.” 

Steve smiled, even as he forced back tears. “Thank you. I’m going to take care of him.” 

Wanda got into the car, and Steve got one more hug and a kiss from Pepper and a handshake from Tony. “We’ll talk soon,” Tony said. “Just . . . not right now. Later.” 

“Okay.” Steve stood out in the front yard and watched as Tony pulled into the street. He waved, and Pepper and Wanda waved back at him. The SUV headed away, and Steve went back into the house.

  

 

Mercifully, Sam didn’t bring up the subject of what to do about Bucky until after final cups of coffee had been drunk, and Steve had washed the breakfast dishes. He could hear the soft sounds of conversation from the other room, and he didn’t think for a moment that Sam and Natasha would simply be making small talk with Bucky. They would have to have a serious conversation sooner or later, all four of them, he knew. He’d even asked Sam to have it while he made breakfast. But he found himself dawdling over the dishes anyway, scrubbing them much more thoroughly than a bit of egg, matzo and syrup truly warranted. 

No matter how much Steve fussed, dishwashing was a finite chore. When the last plate had been soaped and rinsed until it sparkled, and the last spill thoroughly mopped up, there were no more excuses. Steve dried his hands, folded the towel and hung it up, and finally ventured out of the kitchen. 

Sam sat in the armchair, a notepad and pen dangling from his fingers, and Bucky sat on one end of the sofa. Natasha was on the floor, her legs stretched out in front of her, and her laptop on the floor beside her. Bucky stretched out his hands to Steve, and Steve moved to sit beside Bucky on the couch even before he realized that he had done so. Once he had settled himself, Bucky shifted so that he could sit pressed up against Steve’s left side, carefully keeping his metal arm out of the way. Steve waited until Bucky had made himself comfortable, and then asked “Have you had a good chat so far?” 

After a moment of silence, Bucky answered. “Natalia Alianovna has told me things.” 

“Yeah?” Steve made sure to keep his voice neutral. “Things that were okay to hear?” 

“She told me stories of her life,” Bucky said. “How she came to be here. It was . . .” He turned away, searching for the word, huffing in frustration. “It made me feel . . . not so alone any more.” 

“Good,” Steve said. “I’m glad.” He had wondered more than once about what had brought Natasha to SHIELD, but she had never offered the story, and Steve knew better than to push her on that subject. He didn’t say anything else about it to Bucky, and Bucky relaxed against him. 

Sam waited until they were both comfortable again. “Okay,” he said to Steve. “We’ve had a productive few minutes here, so I’m going to catch you up on some of the basics. The first thing you need to remember is that I have enough training to have some educated ideas, but I am not any of the experts we’re going to need here.” 

Steve’s breath hitched at the idea of experts, plural, and he gripped Bucky’s hand a bit tighter, but he held his tongue. He knew that Sam had noticed his discomfort, but Sam didn’t comment on it. 

“Most important thing is this,” Sam said. He smiled a little. “I think that Bucky can get better, at least partially. We haven’t lost him for good.” 

“He’s been trying for a year on his own,” Natasha added. “In addition to just surviving.” 

Steve smiled at Bucky. “That’s good.” 

“It’s huge,” Sam said.   “I’m not saying that the buddy you remember from 1940 is magically going to come back to you, but I think that Bucky’s in there somewhere. With a bit of help, we can find him and maybe, you know, find out who he is now.” 

Steve nodded. “That sounds about right. I’m not the same person I was in 1940, either.” He fixed his gaze on the floor, not quite wanting to meet Sam’s eyes. There was silence for a moment. 

Natasha was the one to break it. “You should also know that there will be legal repercussions, no matter what we do.” 

Steve bit his lip, but nodded his acknowledgement. He knew exactly how much damage the Winter Soldier had done over the years, and some of the victims’ names were permanently burned into his mind.

“You’ll need to hire a good lawyer,” Natasha said. “I can help you with that, and I think that Barton might know a few people, too. That’s the least of the issues, I think.” 

“Okay.” Steve glanced up again, and saw that Bucky was looking at him with a worried expression on his face. He had to be brave and see this through. Bucky needed him. “Okay. So. Lawyers. We can do that. What other experts did you have in mind?” 

Sam took a deep breath. “A physician and an electrical engineer, to start. Someone to make sure he’s okay and see how everything works. Normally, I’d recommend Tony Stark for the electronics, but I get the feeling that that might not be the greatest idea right now.” 

Steve shook his head and sank a little lower into the sofa. Natasha considered the issue for a moment. 

“I’ll talk to Pepper in a couple of days,” she said. “I’ll see what I can do about getting her to recommend someone at Stark Industries. Tony’s the best, but he and Pepper hire smart people, too.” 

“What do you think, Buck?” Steve asked. 

Bucky shrugged, and Steve heard quiet clicks as plates all up and down his metal arm shifted. “I don’t like people poking in my arm,” he said quietly. “But I liked Pepper. She was nice to me.” He didn’t sound especially enthusiastic, and Steve couldn’t really blame him for that. 

Sam nodded, and ticked off an entry on a list he had made on his notepad. “So that’s engineering. As for the physician, my first choice would have been Doc Banner, since he’s been taking care of Steve. Unfortunately, Banner’s still in the wind. We’re going to have to go with someone else. Not that many people around who have the know-how to deal with enhanced bodies.” 

In a terrible, nauseating flash, Steve knew what was coming. “Sam, no.” 

“Steve . . .” 

“No.” Steve clenched that hand that wasn’t holding Bucky’s into a fist. 

“They’re not the same as they used to be any more,” Sam said. “They’ve got all his records – Steve, look at me. They have his records. They have experience. They’ll know what to do.” 

“No.” 

“Steve, I honestly don’t see what choice we have. It’s for Bucky, remember?” Sam’s gaze was intense, and Steve squirmed under it. “We have to look at SHIELD.” 

“No!” Steve screwed his eyes shut, bit down on his lip, and did his level best to concentrate on the rage that burned inside him at the thought of SHIELD getting their hands on Bucky. He thought of Pierce, and Brock Rumlow and the STRIKE team, and Fury’s endless, almost reflexive double-dealing. He forced himself to recall the helicarriers programmed to destroy hundreds of thousands of people, and before that, the cache of Tesseract-powered weaponry he had discovered just before the encounter with the Chitauri. The anger boiled up inside him, and he nurtured it, feeding it with memories of every underhanded thing that SHIELD and its HYDRA embeds had ever done. He had to be angry, as angry as he had ever been before the war, because if he let the anger go, the terror and the grief would start to show through. 

Sam was talking about psychiatric care, and Steve shuddered all over his body. He knew the SHIELD headshrinkers, and he didn’t want them anywhere near Bucky, not while Bucky was so vulnerable, not after what they had done to – 

“Steve.” Bucky’s voice was gentle, almost scared. He pulled his hand out of Steve’s, and for a moment, Steve was horrified at the thought that he might be scaring Bucky away. Before he could stop it, a shameful tear dribbled down his face, followed by another one. Then, Bucky’s human hand was on his face, rubbing at Steve’s tears with his thumb. 

“Don’t be sad,” Bucky said. “It hurts.” He splayed his metal hand first over his own chest, and then over Steve’s. 

The unprompted comfort startled Steve into stillness. Bucky rubbed his thumb over Steve’s face for a few more seconds, and then curled up against him again, this time giving support as much as taking it.  
Sam relaxed from where he had been poised to leap from his chair and go to help Steve. “It’s okay, Steve,” he said. “We haven’t made anything permanent. We’re just talking here, and you’ve made your opinion absolutely clear. Can you tell me if there’s anything specific about SHIELD Medical that worries you, or is it the whole system?” 

Steve had no idea how to begin answering that question. Fortunately, Natasha stepped in to help. She poked at her laptop for a few seconds, and then handed it to Sam. “This is from the SHIELD infodump,” she told him. “Look under Project Restoration.” 

That had been the name that SHIELD had used for the process of thawing and resuscitating Steve once they had realized that he hadn’t actually died in the ice. Steve had never wanted to look at the records, as his memories of the first few days after waking up were filled mostly with confusion and terror and overwhelming, bone-deep grief. He wasn’t sure how he felt about Sam finding out whatever had been written about him in SHIELD’s records. But, he decided, Sam needed to know, and, as hard as this was, it was a sight easier than telling Sam himself. So he turned his face so that he could breathe in the scent of clean and well-fed Bucky sitting next to him and waited for Sam to finish. 

Sam read slowly and thoroughly, and the room was quiet for a while. Then Sam gave an indignant snort. “Son of a bitch,” he said softly. There was a click as he closed the laptop, and Steve looked up. 

“Okay,” Sam said. “I see where you’re coming from now. We’ll find someone else to work on psychiatric care. I’ll work through some contacts at the VA, maybe consult with Wanda, see if she has any recommendations. You guys okay with that?” 

Bucky shrugged. Steve nodded. “Wish it could be you.” 

“No, you don’t.” Sam chuckled a little. “I don’t have the right certification, and I wouldn’t treat a friend anyway.” 

Bucky blushed, and dipped his head to hide his eyes. 

“Back on topic here, if we’re all done with It’s A Small World?” Natasha said. “We’re good on psychiatric, but I have to agree with Sam. There’s no one who can do the physical care better than SHIELD can.” 

Bucky put his hand on Steve’s arm, and Steve didn’t cry. “Not alone. There has to be someone else on the team. Someone real. Like the nurse who sat with me for a while after I woke up. Someone who’d see Bucky, and not just a body to play with.” 

Sam and Natasha exchanged a glance, and Natasha consulted her laptop. “Why not?” she said. “Cheryl DiMauro left SHIELD a few years ago, and she’s working in a clinic in Connecticut. She’s not part of SHIELD any more, but she’d still know how to work with them. And if you trust her . . .” 

“I do,” Steve choked out. 

“All right.” Sam gave a crisp nod. “I’ll bring her on board.” He consulted his notepad again. “This is looking good. Legal, engineering, physical, and psychiatric care for Bucky, we’ve got some suggestions for all of those. Just one more group to go.” 

“What’s that?” Steve thought hard, but he couldn’t think of any other immediate professional help to give Bucky. Of course, he never discounted the possibility that the new century had more new things to offer than he had imagined.

“We need to put together some support people for you, too,” Sam said.

“Oh.” For a moment, Steve was too surprised to do much more than blink. “I’m fine,” he said. “I don’t need –“ 

He broke off, under the combined pointed gazes of both Sam and Natasha. He looked at Bucky, and Bucky nodded solemnly. “I almost killed you,” he said. “I’m dangerous. You need backup. I don’t mind.” 

Steve nodded. “Okay,” he said, unable to keep the reluctance from his voice. 

“No SHIELD personnel at all,” Sam promised. “I’ll go through the VA, same as for him.” 

Natasha looked thoughtful. “Actually,” she said, “as long as we’re kicking names around, what about your friend Cantor Landauer? You trust her, and she’s helped you before. Want to have her on your team?” 

For the first time since the conversation started, Steve felt a surge of hope. “Debbie? She could do this?” 

“Why not?” Natasha smiled. “She actually does have the credentials for it. I don’t know if you knew that.” 

Bucky frowned. “The cantor’s name is Debbie?” 

“I’ll tell you later,” Steve said. He considered the prospect for a few seconds, and smiled. “You’d like her,” he told Bucky. “I know she’d like you. I could introduce you to her. We could go see her together.” 

“That’s a good idea,” Sam said. “Spiritual care was one thing that I didn’t have on the list, because I wasn’t sure how you wanted to handle it. But that’s a good thing to do together.” 

“Good.” Steve shivered a little. He felt as limp and wrung-out as if he had been fighting aliens all day. “Is that everything? Do we have to – should we start assembling people?”

Sam laughed. “Hell, no!” he said. “For one thing, it’s the weekend. Nobody’d answer till Monday morning anyway. Anyway, just look at you. You need a couple of days to relax. I’m not going to kid you. This is going to be hard. Take the weekend for R and R before it all hits the fan. Natasha and I can stay, if you like, keep an eye on things, but you should have some time just to be together.” 

Bucky’s arm snaked around Steve’s waist, and Steve settled his arm over Bucky’s shoulders. “Thank you,” he choked out. 

Natasha smiled. “Miracles don’t happen every day,” she said. She rose gracefully to her feet and pulled Sam up, too. “We drank all your orange juice this morning, so we’ll go out and get supplies. Don’t worry. I know what to get. We’ll be back.” 

Sam grabbed his car keys, and he and Natasha left. As soon as the door clicked shut, Bucky melted against Steve, and Steve held him close, willing himself to believe that this was real and that he wouldn’t wake up to emptiness and an aching chest. 

“You’re not what I expected to find,” Bucky murmured. “Better.” He raised his head and looked Steve in the eye. “I’ve had a song in my head since yesterday. But I can’t remember all the words. In the Army, the coffee’s mighty fine?”

Steve laughed, even as his eyes filled with tears. “Yeah, Buck,” he said. “I know that one. We used to sing it, back during the war. Remember how it goes?” He began to sing, and, after a moment, Bucky joined in. 

_They say that, in the Army, the coffee’s mighty fine,_

_It’s good for cuts and bruises_

_And it tastes like turpentine._

_Oh, I don’t want no more of Army life_

_Gee, Ma, I wanna go_

_Back where the toilets flow_

_Gee, Ma, I wanna go home._

  

 

END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to everyone who has read and enjoyed this story! It’s been lots of fun to write, especially since Passover is one of my favorite holidays, and I got to hang out in Passover-mindset in the off-season. Bucky’s song is an actual Army song from the Second World War. I think it was originally Canadian, but the Americans adopted it PDQ. I actually learned it at Girl Scout camp lo these many years ago. Matzo brei is one of the great Passover treats, and it’s pretty simple to make. You crumble up three matzos, pour water over them, and immediately pour it off again. In another bowl, beat two eggs, and add a spoonful of water, and some cinnamon and nutmeg if you like. Melt a good wodge of butter in a skillet, and fry the drained matzo in it for a while, until it starts to change color. Pour the eggs over, and mix eggs and matzo together until the eggs are set. It looks like scrambled eggs, but tastes like French toast. Pour maple syrup over it, and dig in. Yummy!


End file.
